Sex-preferential rather than merit-preferential hiring for maths and hard sciences in top universities is a case of relying not on a pool, but a puddle, of talent

Academic Merit Undervalued
John Furedy, Department of Psychology
May 31, 2004

The Bulletin’s annual paean for the university’s employment equity policy (“University Making Progress on Equity but More Work to Be Done”, May 10; see http://www.news.utoronto.ca/bin5/040510d.asp) ignores, as usual, the alternative interpretation that the “progress” in increasing women’s representation in faculty positions may actually be a “regress” towards preferential hiring that undervalues academic merit.

Aside from that interpretation, there is the interesting fact that in the hard sciences (a category that excludes the life, and social, sciences, as well as the humanities), women continue to be “under-represented” at a rate of 14.5%. This contrasts with increases, since 1997, in other disciplinary categories. Presumably it is this continuing low percentage in the hard sciences that Professor Angela Hildyard, vice president (human resources and equity) had in mind when she stated that “We want to ensure that we continue to make equity and diversity integral to our priorities at all levels (my emphasis)”.

Evidence from biological psychology suggests that the low female percentage in the hard sciences is a “level” on which little “progress” will be made, no matter how much more “more work is done”. This evidence has recently been presented by the eminent Canadian researcher Doreen Kimura in her 2003 book, Sex and Cognition (for reviews see www.sfu.ca/~dkimura). The findings are that there are significant group sex differences in cognitive abilities in such categories as higher mathematics, as well as in motivation. The motivational difference is that women, on the average, prefer life - over physical - sciences, even if they are capable of performing equally well in either area. These sex differences appear to have a significant biological basis, although undoubtedly societal factors also contribute.

Another more indirect source of evidence is based on analysis of the tenure-stream advertisements, assessed in terms of their relative emphases on merit and equity. In a recent study (supported by the Donner Canadian Foundation) that examined Ontario university advertisements before and after the 1995 NDP -to- PC shift (www.safs.ca/january2003/advertisement.html) we found that only the hard-science departments increased their merit requirements by, for example, using phrases like “outstanding record of research publications” rather than ones like “an interest in developing a research program”.

In contrast, across all disciplines, there was an increase on the equity emphasis. For example there was an increase in phrases like “especially welcome applications from women” relative to “weaker” phrases like “welcome applications from both women and men”.

An interpretation of the unique hard-science increase-in-merit emphasis coupled with the non-differential increase in equity of all academic units is that the hard-science departments protected the integrity of their disciplines against merit-diluting equity pressure from equity officers and offices by strengthening their merit requirements in their advertisements.

Whatever the reasons for hard sciences not currently measuring up to our administration’s goals of “equity” and “diversity”, it does appear that if these trends continue, the most important division in the university of the future will be between those departments that treat merit seriously and those that do not.

The reason why this puddle/pool comparison is apt is because, at the extreme end of the distribution (i.e., at the super elite end of the performance distribution), the group sex difference is large (as in the case of grandmaster chess performance). Whether the group sex performance difference is primarily due to ability or motivational differences, or (as is more likely) an interaction of the two sorts of factors, is not known. But as in elite sports and games (where also merit judgments are hard to make) so in intellectual pursuits: merit is the only fair and wise criterion to use in selecting winners of any competition for entry to a high-status appointment.

John Furedy, November, 2006

Note: The pool/puddle parallel occurred to me after reading a comment on the troubles of the NSW labor governments recent problems with several sacked ministers whom it has to replace from what, according to the commentator, is not a pool but a puddle of talent. As this item indicates, this also applies to sex-preferential policies that are employed in the selection of tenure-stream appointments in maths and hard sciences that have been adopted by Canadian universities.